Park Service director quits

Mainella recently oversaw overhaul of management policy.

Mainella recently oversaw overhaul of management policy.

July 27, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The head of the National Park Service said Wednesday she will resign, ending a five-year tenure at an agency often at odds with environmentalists and Westerners. Critics have said the agency put too much emphasis on recreation, shifting its focus from conservation. Fran Mainella recently oversaw a revision of management policies for the parks under the agency's care. A Park Service statement said Mainella was leaving to spend more time with her family. Mainella did not say when she will be leaving her post. An agency release said she will serve through the completion of the policy overhaul. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said in a letter to Mainella that perhaps her most important contribution was her "effort to foster a culture of partnership" at the Park Service. Many lawmakers denounced a draft management proposal that would have placed more emphasis on recreation and expanded the use of snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles on federal land. A new draft that Kempthorne released last month retreated from that initial proposal and won praise from environmentalists. In 2004, Congress questioned Mainella about travel costs. Lawmakers who oversaw the Park Service's budget called her to Capitol Hill after records showed she and other agency employees had spent $94 million on travel in the previous two years. In one case, an official took a $9,315 trip to Africa. Park Service officials later said they had reduced travel costs. They also defended Mainella's domestic travel, saying she was the first director to ever visit many smaller and lesser-known national parks. Mainella guided the agency through scrutiny of the use of snowmobiles in parks. For years, snowmobile access to park roads was largely unrestricted. That ended before the 2003-04 winter. The Park Service, in the Clinton era, had a plan that called for phasing out snowmobiles in favor of mass-transit snowcoaches.